In a 2005 article on the film in Uncut, Kevin Maher deemed it "a bloody 1970 exploitation western ... [which] has a gore-count worthy of Cannibal Holocaust." [5] TV Guide awarded the film one out of five stars, writing: " Soldier Blue suffers from Bergen's weak performance and Strauss is bland, but the parallel between the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre and Vietnam's My Lai incident is disturbing and the film's depiction of Native American life is an explicit attempt to move past Hollywood stereotypes." [19] I recall sometime in the late 1970s a film called SOLDIER BLUE being broadcast on ITV . It was on past my bedtime so unfortunately I never saw it but I distinctly remember my parents discussing it the next day and how shaken they were by the amount of violence the movie used in showing a massacre against the Indians at the end . As years passed I have heard how this movie has become a cult classic and how it was an allegory on American involvement in South East Asia and being something of a fan of this type of movie I looked forward to seeing it . Unfortunately it's not a film that appears on the TV schedules and when the BBC broadcast it tonight I think this was the first time it'd been broadcast since my parents saw it nearly 30 years ago After a cavalry charge decimates the Indian men, the soldiers enter the village and begin to rape and kill the Cheyenne women. Honus attempts to halt the atrocities, to no avail, and he is later arrested for treason by his own comrades. Cresta attempts to lead the remaining women and children to safety, but her group is discovered and massacred, though Cresta herself survives and is arrested for treason by the soldiers. Honus is dragged away chained behind an army wagon while a despairing Cresta is left with the few Cheyenne survivors. Recalling the film, star Candice Bergen commented that it was "a movie whose heart, if nothing else, was in the right place." [7] In culture [ edit ]

However this was portrayed in Soldier Blue, I haven't seen it so cannot vouch for it's authenticity or how well or not it is staged, I would imagine what happened for real that day was a lot worse. Soldier Blue is a 1970 American Revisionist Western film directed by Ralph Nelson and starring Candice Bergen, Peter Strauss, and Donald Pleasence. Adapted by John Gay from the novel Arrow in the Sun by T.V. Olsen, it is inspired by events of the 1864 Sand Creek massacre in the Colorado Territory. Nelson and Gay intended to utilize the narrative surrounding the Sand Creek massacre as an allegory for the contemporary Vietnam War. [4] BBC2's print was in an approximate 1.85:1 widescreen ratio, and ran for about 112 minutes (TV speed, though). However, the BBC could not tell me if any material had been censored or cut by them, or by the distributor of the movie. I love Native American culture, but the whitewashing of Native atrocities and this revisionist history stuff is dishonest and unbalanced. "Soldier Blue" is guilty of this but, as a movie, it's entertaining and its message is necessary in light of all the movies that depict Indians as sub-human savages to be gunned down on the spot.

JAPANESE NON-HORROR

Retrospective analysis has placed the film in a tradition of motion pictures of the early 1970s– such as Ulzana's Raid (1972)– which were used as "natural venues for remarking on the killing of women and children by American soldiers" in light of the political conflicts of the era. [17] However, the "visual excesses" of the film's most violent sequences have been similarly criticized as exploitative by modern critics as well. [18] a b Ebert, Roger (January 1, 1970). "Soldier Blue". Chicago Sun-Times . Retrieved March 28, 2018– via RogerEbert.com. The other cut is of a rape scene during the Sand Creek massacre. Naturally, it's harrowing, but it's neither glorifying rape, nor being gratuitous. It's integral to the plot; it's contextualised; it's neither made light of, nor made horrifically graphic. Without it, subsequent scenes showing a topless dead body could be perceived as pornographic. To be sure, this is a comedy overall. This relieves it of a lot of criticism about its unrealistic tone and pace. But this comic element is layered with a brutality and frankly honest depiction of the time that is valuable. And the way it is filmed, with lots of long lens shots from a far distance zooming in on the main characters, is interesting, too. In all, it's a better film in the details than in the overall effect.

at the close of Soldier Blue. Indeed, the details are so alike – right down to a massacre in a ditch – The film provided the first motion picture account of the Sand Creek massacre, one of the most infamous incidents in the history of the American frontier, in which Colorado Territory militia under Colonel John M. Chivington massacred a defenseless village of Cheyenne and Arapaho on the Colorado Eastern Plains. As a Western, the characters are far too anachronistic. It would be little surprise to hear Cresta say to Honus, "Get with the programme, Soldier Blue. The Man has been lying to you." As an allegory, it's simplistic, patronising and wasteful. But that just won't do. The film is too mixed up to qualify as a serious allegory about anything. And although it is pro-Indian, it is also white chauvinist. Like "A Man Called Horse," another so-called pro-Indian film, it doesn't have the courage to be about real Indians. The hero in these films somehow has a way of turning out to be white.U.S. Cavalry who were breaking new ground. For Nelson’s portrayal of the boys in blue as blood crazed Just had a response from Jon Mulvaney - the Customer Service guy from Criterion. Sadly, it's only a pre-generated reply.